Funding Targets Drug-test Backlog

December 25, 1985|By Mark Eissman and Joseph R. Tybor.

The number of chemists analyzing suspected narcotics will double next year as a result of funding providing for additional civilian police personnel, the head of the Chicago Police Department Crime Laboratory said Tuesday.

Seven chemists will be added to the crime lab in an attempt to deal with a backlog that causes up to 200 Chicago drug cases each month to be dismissed because drug tests are not completed in time for court hearings, said Capt. Paul Gall, director of the laboratory.

Gall made the announcement one day after the Chicago City Council approved a compromise budget for 1986 that includes funding for additional civilian police personnel.

Mayor Harold Washington had requested the funding in his 1986 budget proposal released in October. Until Monday`s compromise, however, the council majority bloc was supporting a substitute budget that substantially reduced that funding.

Gall said the number of chemists has declined steadily since 1979, and that since then police have tried unsuccesfully to reverse that trend. Only seven chemists work in the crime now analyzing suspected narcotics, and Gall said the increased staffing would be sufficient to eliminate the backlog.

He said a recent Tribune study of drug cases showed the need for additional police chemists.

The Tribune study found that a backlog in narcotics testing in the police department`s crime laboratory resulted in the dismissal of up to 25 percent of the 7,000 felony narcotics cases that entered the court system during a 13-month period in 1983-84.

The study found that only 30 percent of defendants charged with drug offenses were convicted, and that only 10 percent were sentenced to prison.

About one-half of all drug cases were dismissed at the defendants`

preliminary hearing, which must be held within 30 days of arrest if a defendant cannot make bail and within 60 days if bail is posted.

At the hearing, prosecutors must show there is reason to continue prosecuting the defendant by proving he was in possession of drugs. The Cook County state`s attorney`s office said records there show up to 200 cases a month are dismissed because laboratory tests are not completed.

``The Tribune study shed light on the need for more chemists and the effect of not having them, and we`re pleased we got them through the budget process,`` Gall said.

Gall said the laboratory receives about 50 new drug cases daily and that he has enough chemists to complete analysis on only 35 of them.

As many as five tests can be required on substances thought to be narcotics and the analysis generally takes about an hour and a half. But if the quantity of evidence is substantial and packaged in small units, the tests can take several days or even a week to complete.

Gall said it would take the police department up to 18 months to hire and train the new chemists and catch up with the current backlog of cases.

The Tribune study was part of an ongoing examination of the criminal justice system in Chicago, done in consultation with Peter F. Nardulli, a professor at the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.

The study also found that the failure of the state`s attorney`s office to evaluate drug cases before charges are filed and eliminate those least likely to result in conviction makes convictions in stronger cases more difficult.

That failure also exacerbates the crime laboratory`s problems, Gall said, because time must be spent analyzing evidence in even the flimsiest of cases. But Cook County State`s Atty. Richard Daley said the case evaluation procedure, which is used for all other categories of felonies, relies heavily on information provided by police officers.

In narcotics cases, Daley said, the persons facing arrest frequently offer lucrative bribes to police to have the police change their stories and free the suspects. For this reason, Daley said, he prefers that charges be filed in every case, so that every case goes to court.